Alina Habba Says She Is Now Acting US Atty In NJ

By Lauren Berg

Alina Habba posted on social media Thursday that she is now the acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, two days after the federal district court declined to extend her tenure in the interim position.

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NJ High Court Orders Questioning Of Murder Trial Juror

By Elizabeth Daley

New Jersey's highest court cast doubt on three murder convictions on Thursday and ordered a judge to make up for inadequately questioning a juror after receiving a tip that she was Googling and discussing the case against three men who allegedly killed a schoolteacher, reportedly telling colleagues she would find them guilty and 'burn their asses.'

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NJ Attys Warn RICO Case Revival Would 'Chill' Lawyering

By George Woolston

The New Jersey State Bar Association told a Garden State appellate court that lawyers across the state will be chilled from zealously advocating for their clients if it revives the state's racketeering indictment against two politically connected attorneys, making it the second attorney advocacy group to file a proposed amicus curiae brief in the case.

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Rubio Memo Still A Threat Despite Injunction, Khalil Says

By Britain Eakin

Mahmoud Khalil told a New Jersey federal judge Wednesday that the Trump administration's bid to stay an injunction that bars his removal, if successful, would leave him at risk of removal under the very grounds the court prohibited.

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NJ Mall Says Insurers Owe $20M For Prop Helicopter Damage

By Hope Patti

The owner of the American Dream mall in New Jersey said its insurers wrongfully reduced a $20.5 million claim for loss and damage caused by a decorative 2-ton helicopter falling from the ceiling of its indoor water park, according to a suit removed to federal court Thursday.

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Dish Network Can't Get Redo In $3.5M Auto Crash Suit

By Mike Curley

A New Jersey appeals panel won't let Dish Network Service LLC get a retrial following a $3.5 million verdict in favor of a woman grievously injured in a collision involving one of its drivers, rejecting its argument that the evidence didn't support the verdict.

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Green Groups Cleared To Join EV Funding Freeze Challenge

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge will let the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations enter a multistate lawsuit against the federal government seeking to preserve funding for new electric-vehicle charging infrastructure, concluding the groups have a significant interest in protecting the project funds.  

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Trump Admin Asks Justices To Stay Block On NIH Grant Cuts

By Rae Ann Varona

The Trump administration on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a district court's preliminary injunction so that the National Institutes of Health can resume terminating $783 million in grants, saying the lower court, under a recent high court ruling, lacked jurisdiction to make the government pay the grants.

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NJ Judge Orders Gun Store To Halt Illegal Ammo Sales

By Carla Baranauckas

A Garden State firearms retailer violated state law by failing to implement reasonable safeguards and selling ammunition to undercover state investigators without checking identification or confirming eligibility to purchase, a New Jersey Superior Court judge ruled.

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NJ Atty To Pay SEC Fine Over Alleged Prime Bank Fraud Role

By Emilie Ruscoe

A New Jersey attorney and a California man will pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission a total of $134,000 as part of agreements to resolve the regulator's allegations they helped bilk an older couple out of over $150,000 through a so-called prime bank scheme. 

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3rd Circ. Rules Philly Injection Site Equals Religious 'Person'

By Carla Baranauckas

A nonprofit battling government resistance to its planned safe drug injection site in Philadelphia can qualify for religious freedom protections, the Third Circuit said in a precedential opinion on Thursday, reasoning the organization meets the definition of a "person" practicing religion.

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Brief

Senate Tees Up Vote On Emil Bove To 3rd Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 50-48 on Thursday to tee up the confirmation of Emil Bove to the Third Circuit, which will likely happen next week.

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Series

Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

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Courts 'Turning Up The Heat' On AI Fake Citation Sanctions

By Emily Sawicki

As the volume of sanctions orders resulting from attorneys' use of faulty citations blamed on artificial intelligence continues to rise, federal judges are beginning to pivot from financial sanctions to more creative means of disciplining lawyers, including targeting their professional reputations in ways that could really hurt.

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Trump Admin Making Another EO Appeal, Targeting WilmerHale

By Jack Karp

The Trump administration is appealing a D.C. federal judge's ruling that President Donald Trump's executive order targeting WilmerHale amounts to a "staggering" assault on the First Amendment, according to a notice filed Friday.

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Will Tom Girardi's Wardrobe Mishap Help His Appeal?

By Craig Clough

When legendary attorney Tom Girardi's pants fell down as he finished testifying in his defense, the judge had to decide: Was this a desperate bid to feign incompetence and avoid prison for stealing client funds, or just an accident by an 86-year-old man with dementia? And if it really was an accident, does it now give Girardi a shot at winning his appeal and overturning his sentence?

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Former Jan. 6 Prosecutor, 2 Other Ex-DOJ Employees File Suit

By Rose Krebs

A former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has filed a federal lawsuit along with two other ex-Department of Justice employees alleging they were unlawfully fired.

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Epic Defends Apple Antitrust Injunction After Birthright Ruling

By Dorothy Atkins

Epic Games has told the Ninth Circuit the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in litigation challenging President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order should not affect a nationwide injunction and civil contempt order issued in its antitrust case over Apple's App Store policies, arguing Apple misread the high court's precedent.

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Judge Keeps Nationwide Block On Birthright Citizenship EO

By Rae Ann Varona

A Massachusetts federal judge Friday refused to narrow a nationwide injunction blocking President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship, saying any narrower alternative would not be enough to protect a group of states from their asserted harms.

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Trump Admin Loses Sanctuary Fight With Ill., For Now

By Hailey Konnath

An Illinois federal judge Friday threw out the Trump administration's first suit challenging local sanctuary policies, ruling that it's within Illinois', Cook County's and Chicago's rights to opt out of helping the federal government with immigration enforcement efforts.

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11th Circ. Calls Dismissal Of Ga. Bar Bias Suit 'Indefensible'

By Chart Riggall

An Eleventh Circuit panel appeared all but certain Friday that it would revive a Georgia attorney's race bias suit against the state's bar association, calling a federal district court's dismissal of her claims that the bar has a two-tiered disciplinary system "indefensible."

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Podcaster At Fees Hearing Blames His Atty For Sanctions

By Zach Dupont

A podcaster accused of spreading lies that a former Dominion Voting Systems Inc. executive rigged the 2020 election blamed his lawyer Friday for his noncompliance with the Colorado federal court, accusing the attorney of "malpractice" and "negligence."

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Dentons Stalling Discovery In Terraform Ch. 11, Court Told

By Alex Wittenberg

The bankruptcy plan administrator for failed cryptocurrency platform Terraform Labs has accused Dentons US LLP of blocking his discovery requests in an attempt to secure final approval of some $25 million in fees, saying the law firm is seeking to "run out the clock" to dodge an investigation into its role in Terraform's collapse.

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Veteran CFPB Enforcement Atty Heads For The Exit

By Jon Hill

A longtime Consumer Financial Protection Bureau litigator told a Virginia federal court on Friday that she is leaving after more than a decade at the agency, becoming the latest departure at the regulator as its future under the Trump administration remains in limbo.

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Legal Org Urges DC Circ. To Reject Trump's Tariff Powers

By Anna Scott Farrell

The D.C. Circuit should affirm a ruling that sided with toy makers and blocked President Donald Trump from using an international economic law to impose emergency tariffs because the law does not give the president the authority he claims, a legal organization argued.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen the owner of a £6 million ($8 million) mansion once rented by Adele sue real estate consultants Strutt & Parker, Romanian-Australian mining investor Vasile Frank Timis bring a claim against reputation and privacy firm Schillings, and a Chinese businessman bring a legal action against his former lawyer over an alleged £12.5 million mortgage fraud.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Glass Lewis brought a lawsuit against Texas over a measure it claims requires the proxy advisory firm to "publicly condemn itself" when its advice for clients reflects certain viewpoints the government disfavors. Meanwhile, a new proposed class action alleges Boeing employees on long-term disability leave missed out on a $12,000 bonus distributed after workers ratified a union contract. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Jones Day and DLA Piper lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Federal Circuit overturned a more than $125 million judgment against Medtronic's CoreValve unit for infringing a Colibri Heart Valve LLC patent.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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